Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta
Encyclopedia
Ashur (god)
Ashur is the head of the Assyrian pantheon....
and perhaps a new capital city founded by the Assyrian
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
king Tukulti-Ninurta I
Tukulti-Ninurta I
Tukulti-Ninurta I was a king of Assyria.He succeeded Shalmaneser I, his father, as king and won a major victory against the Hittites at the Battle of Nihriya in the first half of his reign...
(about 1243–1207 BC) just north of Assur. It's name meant "Port Tukulti-Ninurta".
History
Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta was a totally new foundation about three kilometers North of AssurAssur
Assur , was one of the capitals of ancient Assyria. The remains of the city are situated on the western bank of river Tigris, north of the confluence with the tributary Little Zab river, in modern day Iraq, more precisely in the Al-Shirqat District .Assur is also...
, which was the old capital of the Assyrian empire. Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta was placed on the left bank of the river Tigris
Tigris
The Tigris River is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...
. The walled area of the town was about 800 by 800 meters in size. In the middle there was a wall dividing the city into a western and eastern part. In the western part, near to the river, a temple was excavated for the Assyrian main deity, Ashur. The temple complex, measuring about 53 by 90 meters had a zikkurat on its western side. In the zikkurat was found a text identifying the temple as the temple of Ashur and also providing an identification of the city (the city was already before the excavations known from other texts). From further texts it is known that the cult image of the god was moved from Assur to this temple.
North of the temple stood the royal palace. The palace was placed on a platform, originally about 18m high. All remains of the palace building on the platform are lost, although many wall paintings were found. They show that the palace was richly decorated. Next to the palace a second, badly preserved palace building was found. Perhaps this was the entrance for a bigger palace complee, incorporating both palaces.
The city was abandoned after the death of king Tukulti-Ninurta I. The cult image of Ashur was brought back to Assur.
Archaeology
Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta was first excavated from 1913 to 1914 by a German team from the Deutsche Orient-GesellschaftDeutsche Orient-Gesellschaft
The Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft is a Eingetragener Verein - a registered voluntary association - based at Berlin in Germany....
(German Oriental Company) led by Walter Bachmann which was working at the same time at Assur. The finds are now in the Pergamon Museum
Pergamon Museum
The Pergamon Museum is situated on the Museum Island in Berlin. The site was designed by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann and was constructed in twenty years, from 1910 to 1930. The Pergamon houses original-sized, reconstructed monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
and in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
. Bachmann did not publish his results and his field notes were lost. A full excavation report appeared only in 1985
Work at the site was resumed in 1986 with a survey by a team from the German Research Foundation led by R. Dittman. A season of excavation was conducted in 1989.